hrc seasoned test set-up

While this test may not technically be illegal according to the rule book, it's one of the worst I've ever heard of in terms of the purpose of a Seasoned test.

Let's forget about the blind for a minute and look at the marks. We as judges are tasked to evaluate marking and memory beginning at the Seasoned level. With converging marks that could and apparently did overlap, same area of the fall, someone explain to me how you could possibly evaluate either one?

Using the influence of the marks to effect the blind is something that is regulary done in Finished, but in Seasoned, the judges are testing the dogs ability to be handled to a bird it did not see fall through relativey easy cover. The rule book states: "Blind retrieves should be through easy cover and relatively open water". Why is this? If it was meant for judges to throw in factors such as the influence of marks, why does the rulebook plainly state easy cover and open water? Isn't cover a factor? It is obvious to me the rulebook seeks to limit factors involved when running Seasoned blinds.

Please do not misunderstand my position. I don't have a problem at all with judges throwing as many factors at me at the Seasoned level as they want, as long as the judges are judging accordingly. However in this situation, I don't see how they could judge anything concerning the marks, and very little concerning the blind. This is what I have a problem with.

In my opinion, the judges did very little they were tasked with doing in properly setting up and judging a Seasoned test. Is a test that fails the purpose legal or should it be allowed by the committee? I'm not sure, could argue either way, but a judge is gonna have a problem if he/she sets up something like this at a test I have anything to do with.